Anna's Hope Episode One
Page 17
Chapter 17
Anna slammed face-first into the floor. The wind wasn’t so much knocked out of her, but stolen from her chest. It felt as if tiny hands had ravaged her lungs, stealing every scrap of air and energy until she was left weakened and stilled.
She heard footfall. It came from thick, heavy boots. Then there was the distinctly memorable creak of jeans as someone leaned down close to her. She felt a large hand grab her hair roughly, and her head was yanked back.
She looked up into the wizard’s gaze.
His lips kept kinking and twitching as if he weren’t sure whether to smile or snarl. “I wasn’t going to get you until later. I found a way to sustain myself without the scrap of soul you carry. But look at this – you found me.”
He still held her by the hair, and there was nothing she could do about it. Maybe it was the exhaustion of practicing soul magic of her own, or maybe the wizard’s portal spell had done something to her – but she couldn’t move. It felt as if she’d swallowed an anchor, or someone had managed to turn the air around her into concrete to pin her in place.
She barely managed breath after breath, and only just had the energy to keep her eyes open.
She stared at him.
His lips finally settled into a satisfied grin. “I’m going to enjoy using your soul, Anna. I was going to keep you as an ordinary sacrifice – but I’ve got bigger plans now. You’re going to come in real handy.” He brought up his free hand and brushed two knuckles down her cheek.
“Leave her alone,” someone croaked. The voice was so weak, it barely travelled.
She heard it though, and she knew from whose tortured throat it issued.
Scott.
The dark wizard was back to looking like his usual self. He no longer mimicked Scott, and once again wore his trademark blue jeans and biker’s jacket.
He picked her up by the hair and yanked her to her feet.
She saw she was back in the chapel. Somehow there was still a full moon shining outside, casting its eerie silvery glow through the stained glass windows lining the walls.
Up on the pedestal, Scott was tied to a chair. It wasn’t ropes that bound him – it was magical, writhing snakes. They twisted around his hands and feet, holding him to the chair, the undulating bodies slithering as blue-black magic crackled over their scales.
Scott had a desperate, wide-eyed look on his face. He was pale, beaten, bleeding, and clearly weak, yet he mustered enough energy to beg “let her go.”
The wizard ignored him and dragged Anna forward, finally dumping her next to the lectern. She fell to the floor, her head slamming into the unyielding thin red carpet. She couldn’t move, but she could stare at Scott.
“Fight him, Anna. Come on, you can do it,” he pleaded with her. Blood was dripping down from a gash in his brow, and his usually tied-back hair was loose and clumped around his face.
She tried to push herself up, but her limbs felt as thought they’d been replaced with mountains.
“Fight it,” he begged her. “Don’t let him do this to you. Come on.”
The dark wizard started to mutter some spell. She could hear him leafing slowly through a book resting on the lectern.
She’d called that wizard because she’d been convinced she could fight him. The sorry truth was she didn’t have a chance. She couldn’t stand, let alone muster the energy to attack.
Scott’s expression paled, his desperation giving in to a sickly resignation. He winced, closed his eyes, swallowed, and looked at her one last time.
How had she thought she could fight this guy? He had enough power to capture Scott – and Scott was ten times the bounty hunter she would ever be.
This would be the mistake of her life. Her soon-to-be short life.
She felt tears tumble down her cheeks, their cold touch one of the few things she could feel as a detached numbness started to pull over her limbs. It felt as if someone was deleting her body from her memory. As if, one by one, her hands and feet and legs and arms were being taken away from her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see something climbing her body. Dark crackles of magic leapt over her skin, sinking into the carpet and making it singe.
She whined, trying with every scrap of energy she had to jerk away.
She couldn’t.
The wizard stopped mumbling. He turned around, dropped to one knee, and grabbed her by her injured wrist. She gasped in pain as he tightened his grip more and more, until it felt as if he was trying to squeeze right through the bone until he crushed her hand into dust.
“Just let her go. Please,” Scott begged.
The wizard did let her go. Suddenly, he jerked back and stood. But while he removed his real hand from her wrist, its phantom remained. Once again that ghostly grip was back. It encircled her wrist like steel-reinforced stone.
The wizard flicked his hand to the side, and Anna was pulled up by her wrist. She screamed, but it did nothing. What could it do?
She was beaten, and very soon, she would die.
Tears filled her eyes, washing down her face in waves as resignation stole away her last trace of hope.
The wizard shifted his hand again, and the ghostly grip around her wrist pulled it back until her palm was facing upward, her fingers held back as far as they would go.
“Anna, come on, please fight it. He’s about to steal your soul. Fight it!”
“I bring you a witch,” the wizard announced in a thundering tone that shook the windows and floor. “A soul for you to do with as you please, great master.”
She heard a rumble from outside the chapel. The room started to shake, the torches along the walls shuddering, their light casting erratic, horrible shadows against the stone.
Her eyes drew wide.
She could feel it approaching. The soul catcher.
Scott paled even more – an impossible feat considering he already looked whiter than powdered bone. He tried to fight against the snakes binding him, but they only slithered tighter against this body. “Goddammit, you asshole,” he screamed at the wizard, “you can’t do this. Stop!”
The wizard looked up at him. “I can. I will. I am.” He brought his hand up, and Anna shot into the air, held there by his ghostly grip.
Her wrist was about to break, and she gasped and writhed in agony.
She couldn’t break free though.
The soul catcher continued to approach. There was heavy, pounding footfall from outside. But then, just as it appeared it would break right through the far wall, it stopped. A door opened towards the back of the church, and someone entered. The soul catcher. She watched its enormous troll-like form change in a crackle of black smoke, until a woman walked forward.
With a slight frame and shocking emerald eyes, she walked towards them, her long black hair tapering down her naked back. Her two bare feet padded softly against the cold stone floor as she made her slow way towards them.
The wizard knelt, pressing his head to the floor. “You’re Highness.”
As the woman approached, she raised a hand, her elegant fingers splaying as fine traces of magic sparked between her nails. They made the air around her crackle and spit, like water thrown on coals.
The wizard’s head jerked back, as one of his eyes suddenly lit up like the sun. The iris flared with shocking blue, lines bursting from it and travelling down his face like an infection on fast forwards.
Before Anna could wonder if the soul catcher had killed the wizard, the man pulled himself to his feet, a triumphant smile curling his lips. Half of his face glowed, one eye still alight and burning brightly.
Anna had never seen anything like it. She’d never read anything like it either.
She had no idea what was going on.
There was only one thing she was sure of – she was about to die.
“What soul do you have for me?” the soul catcher asked, her long neck tilting to the side as she stared down at Anna.
“Not her – we can do something better w
ith her,” the wizard intoned darkly.
“What is that, child?” the soul catcher’s voice was melodic and light, tinkling through the room like clinking glasses or light bells.
“I want you to transfer my soul to her body,” the wizard answered.
“Why? If you are after the fragment of soul you lost to her, I can get it back. And then I can feast on what’s left in her.” The soul catcher smiled at Anna, bringing a hand up and running a single fingernail down Anna’s cheek.
“No, I want that body. She has something that could help us.”
The soul catcher inclined her head slowly towards the wizard.
“If you’re hungry, you can feast on that bounty hunter,” the wizard gestured to Scott, “he’s not a witch, and he won’t further out plans, but at least it’s another soul to add to your collection.”
The soul catcher patted a hand down her lustrous, silken hair and stared over at Scott. She didn’t blink as she surveyed his body. “Yes,” she agreed. “I will take him.”
“Then complete the ritual and give me her body. I don’t know how much longer I can sustain you – my caller candle is already burning low.”
The soul catcher tipped her head in agreement, then walked unhurriedly towards Scott.
She was going to kill him. That woman was going to draw the soul from Scott’s body and feast on it.
Anna struggled against the ghostly grip holding her in place. She tried to yank her hand back, she tried to shove her shoulder back and forth until she found the purchase to free herself.
If she’d paused to notice, she would have realized she was moving. Through desperation or time, she was beginning to regain control.
She twisted to watch the soul catch lean over Scott. He watched her with fixed, unblinking eyes, sadness and guilt and anger twisting through his expression.
The soul catcher brought up a hand, and the snakes holding Scott in place disappeared in wriggles of black smoke.
Scott fell to the ground. He tried to back away, but the woman spread her fingers and locked him in place. His body froze under her influence, his open eyes and mouth becoming so still, they looked like stone.
She leaned down.
Magic built around her.
It was the same magic from before – the new, powerful, strange force Anna had first experienced several days ago.
It wasn’t soul magic – it was something else entirely.
It made her allergies surge. Though her body had previously felt numb and detached, now feeling returned in a wave of tingling, burning heat.
She had seconds – seconds before that soul catcher killed Scott.
God, she had to do something!
As her allergies went haywire, Anna fought harder against the ghostly grip. She could feel her body again, and she was determined to use it. She twisted and yanked – fighting with everything she had.
Both the soul catcher and the wizard turned to look at her.
“Contain her,” the soul catcher said.
The wizard stalked towards Anna, bringing a hand up and balling it into a fist.
Anna’s wrist broke. The snap of bone echoed through the hall.
Her eyes burst wide and she wheezed, gulping in an agonized breath.
And yet, despite the pain, she didn’t give up.
The wizard reached her, and with a satisfied smile brought his hand towards the ground. She slammed into the floor, landing on her injured wrist.
More pain exploded through her. It was more burning and intense than any she’d ever felt.
And yet, despite the pain, she pushed herself up.
The wizard stood over her, shaking his head. “You should have stayed down.” He brought his hand back, and sent her skidding across the floor.
“Do not play with her, contain her,” the soul catcher admonished.
“I’m doing both.” The wizard jumped down from the pedestal and followed Anna.
She had to do something.
Now.
She may not have much in terms of power, determination, and ability. She was the girl who’d lost her job before she’d even started it.
Anna was the kind of girl everyone ignored. She could surprise no one. Though sometimes it was novel seeing just how loudly she could sneeze.
Now, everything rested with her. If she couldn’t defeat this wizard and stop the soul catcher, Scott would die.
The wizard reached her and leaned down on one knee. “Done fighting me?”
She looked up into his eyes. She held his gaze. She ignored every blaze of pain, every stab of her allergies and broken body. She held that gaze with all the determination of Luminaria von Tippit herself.
“No,” she said.
Anna fought back.
When she’d searched her soul to find the wizard, she’d practiced soul magic. Now, she did it again.
It was almost an unconscious thing – it just happened as she gritted her teeth and lurched towards him. While she shoved her shoulder into his side, she moved against him with her mind too.
A scrap of the wizard’s soul was still inside her. While that meant he had access to her and could control her, didn’t it mean the opposite too?
Couldn’t she control him?
The wizard was caught off guard, and stumbled back, grabbing his head as he did.
She caught hold of his soul lodged in her heart, and she pulled. She yanked at it like you might a weed.
He stumbled back again, breathing hard, that blue light tracking down his face suddenly turning a muddy brown.
Anna kept moving forward. Though her wrist and arm were broken, she didn’t let that stop her. She rammed her shoulder into the wizard again, sending him toppling over.
She heard the soul catcher shift quickly away from Scott.
Anna had seconds. She had to defeat the wizard before that woman could reach her.
So she used every scrap of magic she had. Every memory, every dream – every twist of fate – she called on it all.
And Anna Hope Summersville practiced soul magic. Real soul magic.
The wizard’s eyes drew wide as she forced her way through them into his mind.
He suddenly drew slack. His legs crumpled from underneath him, and he fell to the floor, frozen like she had been minutes before.
She heard the soul catcher snarl from behind her.
Anna knew what to do.
During her ordeal, the clues had been sliding into place.
She knew how to defeat the soul catcher without even turning to face it.
She closed her eyes. She reached into the wizard’s mind, she grabbed hold of his magic, and she snuffed it out.
Every spell he was casting, stopped. The light along his face died, the lines dropping from his face and disappearing in puffs of smoke.
Far off, a candle stopped burning. A caller candle. The very same candle the wizard had been using to sustain the soul catcher.
The soul catcher gasped.
She disappeared.
It happened in a flash. She did not writhe or twist as the magic sustaining her was ripped from her body. Her eyes simply drew wide as her body blinked out of existence.
Anna had time to turn to her, time to lock onto the soul catcher’s gaze. Then, the woman vanished.
Silence returned to the church. Eerie, quiet, still.
Not even dust filtered down from above.
From outside, the full moon stopped shining, and the once-other-worldly glow bathing the stained glass windows withdrew. Now only the softly flickering torches lit the room.
“Oh my god,” Scott croaked.
She yanked her eyes off the comatose wizard to turn to him.
“You did it. Christ, you did it!” he managed through a wheezing breath.
She ran up to him. Or at least she started to. Very soon she realized how injured she was. She let out a punctuated “oh my god,” of her own.
“Just be careful. You went through a hell of a fight,” he said as he tried but failed
to pick himself off the floor. “I don’t know how you did it, but you got rid of that soul catcher and the wizard. I was wrong about you,” though it looked painful, he lifted his head to stare at her, “you are a great bounty hunter. I’m kinda sore Merry hired you before I could. Actually, I’m kinda sore all over.”
Anna reached him and carefully made it down to her knees without falling and landing on his chest again. She offered him a pained, tired smile. “You okay?”
“Oh, hell no. I’ve been tired to a chair by magical snakes for a day, and my soul was almost stolen by a soul catcher.” He gave the gruffest laugh. “But that’s not important. How are you?”
She didn’t immediately answer. She had to think about that one. How was she?
She turned over her shoulder to stare at the wizard.
She’d beat him. And in doing so, she’d learnt soul magic to boot.
“That was incredible, Anna. How did you do it?”
“I realized he was sustaining the catcher through a calling candle, so I reached in, took control of his magic, and snuffed the candle out.” Even as she said it, she couldn’t quite believe it.
She brought her hands up. The bruises and cuts and swelling confirmed she really had done it.
Scott somehow found the energy to shift up and rest a hand on her shoulder. “Thanks for saving my life. And congratulations on your first bounty.”
“... Ha?”
“There’s a substantial bounty out on that guy’s head. You brought him down, so you get it. My first bounty was a toothless vampire suffering from magical dementia. Yours was a dark wizard calling soul catchers – you’re going to have a hell of a career in this town, Anna Hope Summersville.”
It felt weird listening to his words, really weird. He was talking about her, right?
Right.
As he smiled her way, a little light returning to his tired eyes, there was no doubt he was referring to her.
“I still have magical allergies,” she tried to point out.
“Then you better always pack some tissues and eye drops.” He somehow found the strength to hobble to his feet. Then he reached a hand down to her. “Come on, Anna. I suspect there’ll be people waiting for us.”
Anna accepted his hand.
Almost immediately, she heard a noise filtering in from the opposite side of the chapel. It sounded like frantic footfall thundering down the stairs. Indeed, it was, as in a second, the door burst open to reveal Aaron and a team of burly wizards.
Somewhere at his feet, darted Luminaria.
“What happened?” Aaron raced towards them, his tie flapping behind his shoulder. He didn’t stop until he leapt up the pedestal coming to a rest in front of them. His eyes darted over Anna then settled on Scott. “You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but yes.” Scott stiffened.
Anna could have stayed out of it, but she didn’t. “Scott, he’s not disappointed. Now give your brother a break. Also, give me a break. You’re leaning on me, and you’re pretty heavy.” She handed him over to Aaron.
Though both brothers had a moment of animosity, Scott still accepted Aaron’s shoulder.
After Aaron shored up his stance to support Scott, wrapping an arm around his brother’s back, he turned to Anna.
It was hard to describe his expression. “You shouldn’t have done that, Anna. If Scott hadn’t been there—”
“Hey, leave me out of this, brother. I didn’t do diddly apart from sit there tied to a chair. Anna was the one who took down that wizard and the soul catcher. So once you’re done lugging me to a medic, you should probably sort out her bounty reward.” Scott nodded at Anna.
“... Anna defeated the wizard and a soul catcher?” despite Aaron’s usual emotional control, disbelief wavered through his tone.
“That’s right. I saw it. And, because of her, I lived through it.”
Aaron slowly turned back to her. His expression was completely unreadable. “How did you do it?”
“She learnt to practice soul magic, on the fly, and reached right into the dark idiot, and took control. Like I said, I wouldn’t believe it, but I had the opportunity to watch. Us bounty hunters are going to have to look out for her – she’ll be catching all the crims and grabbing all the rewards before we know it.”
“Um, it wasn’t eniterly me. I mean, it was probably the talisman.” She reached for it, but it was gone. “Oh my god, I’ve lost it.” Panic filled her gaze as she looked up at Aaron. “I’m so sorry. I’ll try to replace it. I ... don’t really have any money, but—”
Aaron smiled. It was dashing – but not in the usual way. She’d seen Aaron try to charm people before, but this was different. His smile reached all the way to his eyes and he brushed a hand down his face. It was real. No act. No façade. “It’s okay, Anna. You don’t have to replace it. I’m glad you’re alright.”
She didn’t know what to do, so she tried to neaten her hair. Big mistake – as soon as she pushed her fingers into it, they got stuck.
She was beyond bedraggled. It was a surprise Aaron hadn’t confused her for a drain monster.
“Alright, we need to wrap this operation up. Anna, can you walk?” Aaron looked at her seriously.
“Her wrist is broken,” Scott supplied immediately.
“But it’s not attached to my legs. I can walk.” She demonstrated by taking a step. “Just don’t ask me to fight anymore wizards tonight,” she groaned.
“It’s alright – we’re fresh out of evil guys,” Scott chuckled. “Case closed.”
Luminaria, who had been sitting near by and watching everything, suddenly stood. “Really? Case closed? Can you be that stupid?”
Everyone turned to look at her.
“Do you honestly think that dark wizard was acting alone?” Luminaria raised an eyebrow.
“We’ll look into it. We’ll investigate this,” Aaron promised. “But for now, let’s enjoy this victory.”
“... He wasn’t acting alone. That wasn’t a normal calling candle he was using,” Anna supplied quickly, a flick of fear returning to her.
She may have just won the battle, but somehow she could feel the war was right around the corner.
That soul catcher would be back.
“We will question the dark wizard when he wakes,” Aaron said, “and I will put out a bounty for any information on those calling candles. We will figure this out,” he commanded.
Luminaria flicked her tail. “Or you’ll fail, and I’ll have fun watching.” She tipped her head back and cackled.
“Come on, Luminaria, aren’t you hungry?” Anna walked up to her. “We can buy some tuna on the way home.”
Luminaria appeared placated, and purred.
“I don’t know how she deals with that cat,” she heard Scott mumble under his breath.
“Patience of a saint,” Aaron agreed quietly.
Anna blushed, turned around, and followed Luminaria.
Case closed.
For now.
Thank you for reading Episode One. Episode Two is currently available.
For news on upcoming titles, please visit www.odettecbell.com.
Other fantasies by Odette C. Bell
The Odette C. Bell Fantasy Bundle
Agent of Light
A Lying Witch
Angel: Private Eye
Anna’s Hope
Gladys the Guard
Magical Influence
Modern Goddess: Trapped by Thor
The Frozen Witch
The Enchanted Writes
The Captain’s Witch
The Witch and the Commander
Witch’s Bell
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